Skip to main content
Main

Tomato and Gelatine Salad

A chilled gelatin salad made with tomato juice, seasoned with salt, served on lettuce leaves and filled with celery mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lettuce and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,033 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Tomato and Gelatine Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Make the gelatine

  1. Soak the gelatine in boiling water until dissolved.

  2. Add the strained juice of the tomatoes and mix well.

  3. Strain the mixture through a cloth to remove seeds.

  4. Season with coarse sea salt to taste.

Set and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a ring mold and refrigerate until firm.

  2. Turn the gelatine out onto a shallow dish lined with lettuce leaves.

  3. Fill the center of the ring with celery mayonnaise.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lettuce + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,033 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Tomato + lettucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Gelatine
Sets the tomato liquid into a firm mold that holds its shape when turned out.
Tomatoes (strained juice)
Provide the main flavour and liquid base of the gelatine.
Celery mayonnaise
Adds a rich, creamy fat to contrast the tart, savoury gelatine.

The step that matters

Strain the mixture through a cloth. Gelatine sets only when it is fully dissolved and the liquid is clear of solids; straining removes seeds and pulp so the set is smooth and even, not gritty or cloudy.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lettuce, celery):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Beetrootfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lettuce, celery. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipes